A techy Halloween: Tetris pumpkin and five other pumpkin hacks

Not so long ago, making a jack-o-lantern was as simple as cutting out three triangles and creating a wide, leering jaggedy smile. Put a candle in the middle and you're done. Simple, classic, easy.

But times are changing. Over the past several years pumpkin hackers have been experimenting with LED lights, circuit boards, and even robotics to soup up their pumpkins. Previous experiments in pumpkin hacking have culminated in what we think may be the greatest pumpkin hack of all time: the Tetris Pumpkin, by Nathan Pryor, a programmer based in Washington.

Using 128 LED lights, he created a playable Tetris game in a pumpkin, complete with a joystick built into the pumpkin's stem.

In a blog post describing what we're calling the Great Tetris Pumpkin Project in detail, Pryor writes that the entire pumpkin hack took him about 12 hours to complete. It took him three tries just to find the perfect pumpkin.

If you are dazzled by the Tetris Pumpkin like we are, then check out these five cool pumpkin hacks.